Harvest labour costs will rise by 4.5 per cent in 2010 under a new Horticulture Industry Award released Christmas Eve.

Immediately following the announcement, Fruit Growers Victoria and the Victorian Peach and Apricot Growers Association went into an emergency session to work out rates for the 2009-10 harvest.

The award is a revised version after industrial groups lobbied Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard to review the original award months ago.

Ms Gillard had said there would be no disadvantage for either employer or employee under the award changes.

Fruit Growers Victoria general manager John Wilson said he was disappointed with the outcomes of the new award.

"While these outcomes are a better situation than was imposed on our industry in the original modernised award, they still represent a failure of Minister Gillard's `no disadvantage' test for award modernisation," Mr Wilson said.

"Neither employer or employee was supposed to lose out in the process - clearly that is not the case for Victorian growers."

The key outcomes of the new award are:

Harvest period has been defined as the period of time during which the employees of the particular employer are engaged principally in the harvesting, grading or packing of horticultural crops;

Casual loading will apply to casual pieceworkers, and the casual and piecework penalty rates will compound;

The piecework penalty rate will rise to 15 per cent from 12.5 per cent.

Goulburn Valley harvest labour co-ordinator Mike Kiss said he believed no changes should have been made in the first place.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Mr Kiss said.